


Adonai-shamah (12x20 coda)

by interstitial



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s12e20 Twigs and Twine and Tasha Banes, Gen, Not A Fix-It, may contain mental health triggers for some, please see end notes if concerned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 13:31:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13525317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/interstitial/pseuds/interstitial
Summary: Alicia has a problem. Sam's had it too.





	Adonai-shamah (12x20 coda)

“I can’t,” she says.

Sam smiles ruefully into his phone. “Yeah, I couldn’t either. It’d kill Dean.”

“No, you don’t understand.” 

It’s three a.m. and the bunker is dark and quiet. The table lamp casts a tiny island of light where Sam's been researching grace extraction techniques. 

Alicia’s voice is tight with panic. “I mean I literally _cannot._ I left myself a note. I don’t remember writing it.” 

“Oh,” Sam says.

“There are six hash marks at the bottom.”

“Okay.” Sam’s hands are starting to shake. “Okay, I’ll come.”

 

-*-*-

Sam leaves a text on Dean’s other, other phone. He borrows the Impala, and drives to Manitoba. Alicia has missing time. If she tries to come to Sam, Max will find her gone, and then she’ll just have more.

They meet at a trail-head in Riding Mountain National Park. Sam’s been driving fourteen hours straight. His eyes feel gritty and his head hurts. 

Alicia is waiting for him, with her hands in the pockets of her jeans against the cold. The wind has blown her hair into disarray. She looks young and vibrant and full of life. She smells like butane.

“Are you sure?” Sam asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “I’m sorry.”

Sam shrugs awkwardly. He doesn’t say _it won’t be the first time._

When he’s done, Sam will text Dean again, so Dean won’t worry. Tomorrow, he’ll drive back to the bunker. The nephilim baby is due any day now, and Cas is still missing. When they solve those problems, assuming they do, there will be others waiting in the wings.   

On the way here, he cried so hard at one point that he had to pull over. But now, inexplicably, standing shivering in the cold forest air with the match unstruck in his hand; from somewhere deep inside him, there’s a warm, bright spark of joy. It’s not the unmixed happiness of their usual saves, but there’s something intimate and tender in it anyway. There’s nothing the same as giving someone else a gift that you yourself have not received.

“I don’t know how to thank you, Sam,” Alicia says, “Max will thank you- later- too.”

Sam's not so sure that’s true. But he leans down and kisses her on the forehead. 

And then he burns Alicia’s heart on the pyre of her new body’s twigs.

**Author's Note:**

>  **Warnings:** Character Death, Assisted Suicide  
>  Originally published on tumblr in slightly different form.


End file.
